Minutes of the Dorset Community Safety Partnership - 21 September 2023

Attendance 

Apologies

• Cllr Laura Beddow (Dorset Council)
• Stewart Dipple (Dorset Police)
• Antony Bholah (Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service)
• Sunita Khattra-Hall (Dorset Council)
• Kelvin Connelly (Dorset Council)
• Lisa Reid (Dorset Council)

No 1. 
1. Welcome and Introductions

1.1 Temporary Chief Superintendent Richard Bell welcomed colleagues to the meeting. Richard noted that Cllr Laura Beddow had sent her apologies, and confirmed he would be chairing the meeting as Vice Chair of the Community Safety Partnership.

No 2. 
2. Minutes of Meeting held on 22 June and Matters Arising

2.1 3.2 Work on the pan-Dorset Reducing Reoffending Strategy was progressing and the final strategy would be brought to a future Community Safety Partnership meeting for sign off.

2.3 5.8 National Police initiative ‘right care, right person’. Partners discussed the complexities of this work including the conversations taking place locally and nationally. Members of the group discussed the potential implications for Dorset and agreed it would be important to respond to any issues emerging in response to the approach.

No 3. 
3. Progress Against Local Priorities

3.1 John Newcombe updated the group on partners’ work to tackle local priorities, which included a summary of the co-ordination, oversight and progress of specific local priorities as identified at the area Partnership Co-ordinating Group (PCG) Meetings.

3.2 Key headlines included:

• youth related Anti-social Behaviour had increased across the county.
• ti had been a busy summer period across Weymouth and Portland. Initiatives working with hoteliers and licensed premises were going well.
• preparations for the arrival of the Bibby Stockholm Barge continued, working with multi-agency partners.
• there had been a spike in Vehicle theft in Dorchester, and a SARA plan was in place to address this.
• Op Viper continued its good work in combating county lines.
• good work continued to tackle rural crime, with a variety of communication and engagement events taking place across the summer, alongside disruption work.

3.3 John updated the group on the ‘100 days of summer’ initiative which had worked well, resulting in a 40% drop in Anti-social Behaviour in Weymouth Town Centre over the summer period. Richard Bell noted that whilst publicity for the 100 days initiative has been focused on the Weymouth Seafront, the initiative ran across the whole of the county and confirmed that Dorset Police had seen a 20% drop in Anti-social Behaviour overall.

3.4 Cllr Barrow commented on the good work of the Community Safety Accredited Scheme (CSAS) officers, which he witnessed first hand, following a visit with the team. Cllr Barrow asked whether there was a risk of displacing the Anti-social Behaviour issues to other areas of Weymouth, given the decreases in Anti-social Behaviour along Weymouth Seafront.

3.5 John didn’t feel Anti-social Behaviour was being displaced and explained the team had secured further, limited, mobile Community Safety Accredited Scheme (CSAS) resource which would be used in other hot spot areas across the county to help resolve issues.

3.6 There was a discussion about gaining clarity on Anti-social Behaviour levels across the county, given Dorset Police had seen a decrease but the Council’s Anti-social Behaviour team had seen an increase in their workload. John noted the possibility of recording changes having an impact but also queried the changes to 101 which could mean more people were being diverted to the Council’s Anti-social Behaviour team, particularly for issues relating to noise related Anti-social Behaviour.

3.7 Andrew Billany mentioned the role of housing associations in supporting partners’ work to tackle Anti-social Behaviour, and potential for strengthening analysis by including their data and insights. John explained there were good links with local housing associations and agreed it would be helpful to include them in local priority delivery group meetings.

Action - John Newcombe

3.8 Ian Grant asked whether there were any opportunities to raise awareness on how people can keep their vehicles safe, particularly with criminals increasingly using decoders to remote access vehicles. John agreed to take this away and to look at including advice in their communication plan.

3.9 Richard noted that some communications had been delivered by Dorset Police but would welcome any joint activity with partners. Richard also noted that a high proportion of offences are undertaken by a few individuals, through organised crime, and in response, the force had undertaken some focused disruption activity which would likely have an impact on reducing crime levels going forward.

3.10 In response to a question about possible issues of sexual violence in the Weymouth Harbour area, John Newcombe outlined the good work taking place to support women and girls in the night time economy, including through the safer streets initiative.

3.11 Paul Dempsey agreed to look into the issue as it had also been raised at a separate meeting and highlighted the work of the Pineapple Project. Jan West mentioned the SARC (Sexual Assault Referral Centre) which has an outreach team that would be happy to support any work. Richard Bell explained he had requested a review of serious sexual assaults for the Local Policing Area (LPA).

3.12 It was agreed all partners would feed back any findings and developments at the next meeting.

Action - All Partners

No 4. 

4. Progress Against Strategic Priorities

4.1 Andy Frost introduced the item, highlighting the work undertaken to tackle domestic abuse and serious violence and plans to develop work on tackling sexual offences, research and performance.

4.2 Ian Grant and Ian Denness gave a presentation outlining initial findings from research work on local domestic abuse issues and the response through planned commissioning activity. Drivers for the work included the Community Safety Plan, Dorset Domestic Abuse Strategy and Domestic Abuse Commissioning Charter.

4.3 Key to partners’ local strategy was taking time to get beneath issues, through research, gathering evidence and listening to those with lived experience. This would ensure partners were focusing on the right interventions and designing the system around people’s needs, based on evidence. Ian explained the approach to evidence and research was a continuum, and would evolve over time, continuing to shape the local response.

4.4 Ian Denness set out why partners were undertaking research and how it met the Community Safety Partnership overarching aim of; Prevention of occurrence, Support for victims and Accountability for perpetrators.

4.5 Ian Denness gave a summary of the aims of the research:

• to determine the extent and nature of domestic abuse in Dorset
• to establish the local need for domestic abuse services…
• …and to gauge whether existing provision meets that need
• to direct the commissioning of appropriate service

4.6 The methodology behind the research included an audit and collation of existing data between 2020 – 2022 at a postcode level.

4.7 Theme areas from the research included, Domestic Abuse Victim Profiles, Domestic Abuse Suspect Profiles, Victim/Perpetrator Relationships, Domestic Abuse Crime Types, (Under) Reporting Domestic Abuse, Rural/Urban Contrasts, and Domestic Abuse and Deprivation.

4.8 Ian Grant gave a summary of the current commissioning arrangements across Dorset and explained the opportunity to co-design a future system with existing service provision being refreshed and aligned to other existing services by March 2025.

4.9 Lewis Gool explained that Safelives was undertaking a review to help inform partners’ re-commissioning work. The review would look at the whole system and build on partners’ discussions. Lewis also stressed the findings from the national rural crime report which highlighted the barriers for people in rural locations.

4.10 Paul Dempsey mentioned the Safer Families Together pilot operating in the Chesil and Dorchester area and the role it could play in continuing to help address domestic abuse issues locally.

4.11 Cllr Molly Rennie congratulated partners on the good work completed over the past few years and stressed the importance of including non-commissioned services in development activity.

4.12 Jan West highlighted national research that showed health staff were at risk of domestic abuse. This had borne out locally with a significant proportion of staff accessing domestic abuse services.

4.13 Richard Bell requested that the presentation was circulated to members of the group so partners had time to digest the findings. Richard also stressed the importance of using the findings of this research, particularly the locality mapping, into the integrated health board agenda.

Action - Ian Denness, and Ian Grant

No 5. 

5. Domestic Homicide Reviews

5.1 Members of the group considered work on Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHRs). 

5.2 Di Evans updated the Partnership on the status of Domestic Homicide Reviews including those that were marked complete, those currently with the Home Office Quality Assurance Panel, those that were ongoing, and those that did not meet the Domestic Homicide Review criteria or had been passed to other Community Safety Partnership's to deliver.

5.3 Members of the Community Safety Partnership noted progress against Domestic Homicide Reviews 16 and Domestic Homicide Reviews 18.

5.4 Members of the Community Safety Partnership considered reports, key learning and recommendations relating to one review and discussed those aspects relating to education and whole family response. Following the discussion members of the group signed off the reports for submission to the Home Office and agreed the key learning points and recommendations from the review. 

5.5 Cllr Molly Rennie raised the requirement of training and suggested opportunities given to professionals and agencies (from both statutory and non-statutory) to sit alongside one another, with specialist domestic abuse providers.

Resolved

5.6 The recommendations in the report were agreed.

No 6. 

6. Serious Violence Duty

6.1 Earlier in the year, members of the Community Safety Partnership received reports on the new serious violence duty including an overview of the Duty’s requirements, keys milestones, funding allocations, co-ordination activity, and the role of Crest Advisory Group.

6.2 Di Evans explained that since the last meeting partners had continued to make good progress in working towards the new duty. Key headlines included:

• good and regular attendance at the task and finish group, leading and coordinating partners’ work on serious violence.
• each partner providing regular updates on their ongoing work and achievements towards meeting the Duty.
• met governments second key milestone, including monitoring report cards completed and sent back to government via the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner.
• maintained good momentum in research and analysis to produce the strategic needs assessment (SNA).
• seen good progress in undertaking community consultation work.
• developing further consultation work, to involve young people and serving prisoners.
• concluded our work with the Crest Advisory group, having engaged with them on developing our needs assessment.

6.3 Di advised that key areas of focus for the coming months would be:

• conclude work on the initial needs assessment (SNA), identifying key immediate priorities alongside areas for future, deeper investigation. 
• based on the findings of the initial needs assessment, produce a strategy.
• continue engagement activities to generate qualitative evidence to add further value to quantitative findings. 
• capture the evidence base and performance measures from partner activity in response to the Duty.
• use SNA identified priorities, to agree interventions and populate the Home Office monitoring requirements on delivery.

6.4 Di explained that work will continue to be progressed through the serious violence task and finish group, with updates brought back to the Community Safety Partnership at regular intervals.

6.5 Following a question from Paul Dempsey, Di explained that engagement work with younger people was being taken forward with colleagues in Children’s Service’s.

6.6 Jan West shared with the group that work in Dorset to respond to the serious violence duty, was recognised as good practice at a recent regional health meeting. 

6.7 Members of the group acknowledged the complexities associated with this work including responding to the government guidance and stressed the importance of progressing effective, evidence based interventions and solutions.

No 7. 

7. Development of a Performance Management Framework

7.1 Ian Denness presented the item which looked to help progress the development of a performance management framework for the Community Safety Partnership.

7.2 Six priority areas were included in the Community Safety Plan 2023 to 2026, along with four cross cutting themes.

7.3 Members of the group discussed the current measures included in the Plan. Although these expressed partners’ aspirations in general terms, they were too broad to provide a fully functional framework for gauging progress in each area. Members of the group were keen to develop a framework that provided evidence of their successes and achievements, linking back to the needs and issues identified in the annual Partnership Strategic Assessment and additional analytical work.

7.4 It was agreed that Ian would lead on the development, maintenance, and promotion of a more comprehensive performance framework for the Community Safety Partnership. However, all Community Safety Partnership members needed to engage in the development work, agree measures, own and work towards meeting targets.

Action - Ian Denness, and All Partners

7.5 The first phase will require a detailed investigation into the data and information that can be made available, the frequency of its update, and the method of its collection.

7.6 All members of the group emphasised the importance of measuring outcomes and impact. Paul Dempsey mentioned a similar approach was being taken with the Children and Young Person’s Plan.

7.7 Jan West highlighted the development work around DiiS and agreed to extend invite to members of the Community Safety Partnership.

Action - Jan West

7.8 The Community Safety Partnership’s performance dashboard would be assessed as part of the work to develop a performance management framework.

Action - Ian Denness

No 8. 

8. Forward Plan

8.1 Members of the Community Safety Partnership agreed the Forward Plan.

No 9. 

9. Any Other Business

9.1 Lewis Gool updated the group on work to implement the Immediate Justice Pilot into Dorset.

9.2 Joe Ennis explained that Probation now have a duty to consult on unpaid work projects and to seek feedback from Partners. Joe gave a summary of the projects, however, agreed to share these in an email to members of Community Safety Partnership for further feedback.

Action - Joe Ennis

9.3 Jan West confirmed she was retiring and that this would be her last Community Safety Partnership meeting. Jan advised that her manager, Simon Hester would be joining future meetings.

Future Meeting Dates:

• 10am on 21st December 2023
• 10am on 14th March 2023